


Keeping Track

by kaydeefalls



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-02
Updated: 2004-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah has never noticed how slowly time passes until he's keeping track of it, minute by agonizing minute of trying not to think about Orlando.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Track

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank yous to karri and myheadgames for the betas!

The glowing television screen is the sole source of light in Elijah's small, cluttered living room. It barely manages to illuminate the Playstation controller in his hands, blurring the red and green and blue buttons into a universal, murky shade of brown. The glare bounces off his glasses and pierces the corners of his eyes, while he attempts to fend off a headache by focusing on the violently neon green car currently making its way around a series of fantastical and, if he thinks about it, vaguely ridiculous racetracks. He doesn't think about it.

Elijah maneuvers his car through a purple-lit tunnel, the flashing lights on the walls clashing hideously with the green vehicle. He swerves to avoid one of the other cars, then deliberately sideswipes it. The other car skids into the tunnel wall, accompanied by the appropriate sound effects. A little blurb in the corner of the screen informs Elijah that his car is now in second place.

Elijah grins, steering his car out of the tunnel and back onto the open road. He's always been good at this game. Back in New Zealand, the other guys could usually kick his ass at Playstation, but he remained champion of this one. Even Orlando, king of all video games, was hard-pressed to defeat Elijah at...

Orlando. Fuck.

Elijah's good mood crashes and burns. He glances down at his watch, angling his wrist awkwardly to catch the light of the TV. Twenty minutes. It's been twenty minutes since he last thought about Orlando. Just fucking great.

He barely even notices as his car drives itself off a cliff.

*

 _Three weeks after they all left New Zealand, Elijah's phone rang. "Yeah?"_

 _"Doodle?"_

 _"Hey, Orlando! Man, when are you coming over to the States to visit me, huh?"_

 _"Er, actually, I'm in the States. Florida. Just landed twenty minutes ago, Billy and Dom are still looking for their bags."_

 _"Oh, that surfing expedition Billy was talking about, yeah. I didn't know you were going along."_

 _"Yeah, well, I'm here. Were you, uh, supposed to be coming?"_

 _Elijah glanced around his empty little home. He'd filled it with junk immediately, trying to make it his, but no amount of stuff was the same as people. Sure, his mom and sister lived in the main house next door, but... "I was thinking about it."_

 _"Right. Look, Elijah, we need to talk."_

 _"Well, we're talking now, aren't we?" Something small and cold pinched deep in Elijah's gut, but he ignored it. "Although it's been way too long since you last called. Wanker."_

 _"Uh, sorry. But I mean, you know..." There was a long pause, and Elijah thought he might be able to hear Orlando think, hear him carefully choose the right words to string together. "I mean, we're not in New Zealand anymore."_

 _Don't, Elijah thought. Don't say it. Don't let this go where I think it's going. "No," he said, keeping his voice light and unconcerned. "We're not."_

 _"Yeah. And I've been thinking, uh, that we're not, you know, ever going to be like we were there. I mean, I think it's, um, over. Whatever we did, or were, or thought we...yeah. I don't think we're going anywhere as, well, as a 'we.' You know?"_

 _"Yeah," Elijah said tonelessly. "I think I know what you mean."_

 _"So, like, it's--"_

 _"Over," Elijah finished. "I got it, Orlando."_

 _"Good," Orlando said. He wasn't even trying to hide the relief in his voice. "Hey, um, Billy's here, I'm passing the phone to him."_

 _Taking the fucking cheap way out, Elijah thought furiously. Typical._

 _"Hey, Lijah!" Billy chirped. "Are you planning on joining us, then?"_

 _"No," Elijah replied. He stared down at his kitchen counter, tracing the wood grain with a shaking finger. "I don't think that would be a good idea."_

*

Elijah has never noticed how slowly time passes until he's keeping track of it, minute by agonizing minute of trying not to think about Orlando. He plays too many video games, especially the violent, gory ones, and tries to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head that's constantly psychoanalyzing his newfound enjoyment of hacking or shooting or blowing things up into tiny bits. He wanders around L.A. without his contacts or glasses, stumbling through his own fuzzy world, unable to focus on anything that might remind him of Orlando. Nothing had ever reminded him of Orlando before, of course, but now that it's over, everything does. Fucking clichés, only true when they hurt.

He counts off the minutes between bouts of Thinking About Orlando, and sometimes hours if he's really lucky. Never days. And sleeping doesn't count, because he hasn't gone a full night yet without dreaming of brown eyes and tan skin, hot mouth, slick tongue pushing greedily against his own, long fingers pressing into his shoulders so hard he's surprised not to find bruises when he wakes up.

Time passes too slowly, but it passes nonetheless.

Elijah is making a halfhearted attempt at washing a week's worth of dirty dishes -- anything to keep his hands occupied and mind empty -- when the phone rings. He almost drops the glass he was holding, but catches it at the last minute and sets it on the side of the sink. He swipes his hands against his jeans to get the worst of the water off, and grabs his cordless phone. "Hello?"

"Lij, it's Dom."

"Dom?" Elijah opens cupboards and drawers, trying to find some sort of dishtowel that isn't already soaked. "What's up? Aren't you still surfing in Florida?"

"No, yesterday was our last day. Look, Orlando just told us. I'm really sorry, mate."

It's been fifty-three whole minutes since Elijah last thought about Orlando. Fucking Dom would have to fucking bring it up, wouldn't he? "Whatever." There's nothing dry in the entire kitchen, so Elijah wanders toward the bathroom. "Where are you?"

"Los Angeles airport. Come pick me up."

The phone slips out of Elijah's still-wet hand.

*

 _Fuckbuddies, Elijah called it. It meant that after a hard day's shooting, he might go back to Dom's place or Dom might come back to his, and they'd do the sort of things horny young guys of dubious sexuality liked to do to each other. Nothing makes a long day end well like a good shag, Dom would say. It was true._

 _"You know what would be really cool?" Elijah said once, pushing a very naked Dom up against the bathroom wall so hard that later he'd be able to trace the imprints of the tiles along Dom's back._

 _Dom seemed understandably miffed by the interruption; he'd been enjoying a very skillful handjob mere moments earlier. "What?" he demanded, somewhat mollified by the electrifying scrape of Elijah's teeth against his nipple._

 _"A threesome," Elijah whispered wickedly, giving the nipple in question a decisive lick._

 _"Don't stop," Dom half-whimpered, probably meaning the thing with the tongue and the nipple and the oh god yes. "Oh. Um. Who?" he added, definitely meaning the threesome suggestion._

 _Elijah's tongue worked its way up to the hollow of Dom's throat. "Orlando," Elijah murmured, spelling the name out against Dom's neck. "He's pretty."_

 _"You're prettier," Dom said softly, but his words were muffled by Elijah's mouth covering his, lost into the kiss. He never said yes, but then again, he never said no, which was enough for Elijah._

 _Later, though, he said he wasn't too sure about the whole threesome thing, and Orlando was hot but it might be weird and could he think about it for a little longer? Elijah was surprised -- Dom was usually very open to new sexual experiences, and, well, come on, who doesn't want to try a threesome? But he respected Dom's reluctance, and when he approached Orlando, he kept Dom out of it._

 _And when he fucked Orlando -- and "pretty" didn't even begin to cover it, Orlando was hotter than hell, and fuck, the guy could do things with his tongue and a little twist of the hips that were probably illegal in at least fifteen states -- the subject of Dom never came up._

 _Fuckbuddies, Elijah had called the whatever thing between him and Dom, and it was only much, much later, when he was very much With Orlando, that he realized Dom had thought they were something else entirely. He felt like a total jackass, but by then it was really too late to go back and apologize._

 _They never talked about it._

*

"That fucker," Dom fumes, "breaks up with you as soon as he gets to Florida and doesn't bother telling me or Billy about it until our last night there. Three whole weeks, and he didn't even mention it!"

"It's no big deal," Elijah says, concentrating on weaving his car through late afternoon traffic on the Santa Monica Expressway. No big deal. Stop talking about Orlando.

"What was he thinking? We're your friends too, right? And his. And then he spends three fucking weeks on the beach, having the time of his life, and it never even occurs to him--"

"Look," Elijah says wearily, "just forget it." You're not helping, Dom. You're not helping.

Sadly, Dom does not spontaneously develop telepathy and shut up. "You'd think he'd have some kind of, you know, emotional reaction to having just broken up with--"

Stop. "Dom, why are you here?"

The question catches Dom off guard. He looks over at Elijah, forehead creasing in confusion. "I -- I'm not sure. It just seemed like the thing to do. And I wanted to see you, anyway." Dom swallows hard and scratches the back of his neck. "You don't want me here?"

Elijah doesn't respond. He keeps his eyes trained on the road in front of him, his hands clenching the steering wheel. This isn't one of his stupid video game racetracks. This is the real world, and in real life, when you fuck up, real people get hurt.

Thirty-seven seconds since he last thought about Orlando, and for the first time in almost a year, he can't meet Dom's eyes.

*

 _"What about Dom?" Orlando asked him, their second night together, while he had Elijah stripped down to his boxers and splayed out across the bed._

 _Elijah wriggled his hips impatiently. "What ABOUT Dom?"_

 _"Well," Orlando said, slipping long fingers under the waistline of Elijah's boxers, "weren't you two, uh, sort of together?" Elijah arched up into Orlando's hands._

 _"Yeah," Elijah breathed in response to those long fingers doing unmentionable things with the tip of his -- "I mean, no," he corrected hastily, in case Orlando has misinterpreted, "we're not."_

 _Orlando smiled, tugging the boxers off at a maddeningly slow pace. Friction. Yeah. "But you guys have, well..."_

 _"Yeah," Elijah said again, appropriately this time. He kicked his legs a bit to finish with the getting- rid-of-the-underpants thing, then snaked an arm up around Orlando's shoulders and pulled him down. "So?"_

 _"Wouldn't want to be trespassing on anyone else's territory, that's all," Orlando murmured, voice low, the words making his chest vibrate ever so slightly against Elijah's._

 _Elijah smirked at him, deliberately tangling their legs together. "You're not."_

 _Orlando slipped a hand between Elijah's back and the bed, tracing his way down Elijah's spine to his ass and pulling their hips closer together. Their bare cocks bumped against each other not-quite-awkwardly, and Elijah bit his lip hard to keep from moaning. "Good," Orlando whispered._

 _Later, Orlando would comment, almost offhandedly, "Dom really fancies you, you know," but Elijah would ignore it, muffling it with a kiss._

*

Elijah and Dom sit at opposite ends of the couch, attempting to out-race each other's cars. Elijah's usual neon green racer just barely has the lead against Dom's, which is a particularly jarring shade of electric blue. ("A distraction," Dom claims whenever Elijah complains about the hideousness of the color. "You'll be too busy bitching about my car to notice that I'm totally kicking your ass.")

"Why'd he dump you?" Dom asks unexpectedly. Elijah's hands jerk on the controller and his car careens into a guardrail. He watches the electric blue horror zoom past.

"What makes you think he dumped me, and not the other way around?" Elijah demands, pulling his car back onto the track.

Dom shrugs, not looking at him. "Crash and burn, mate." Elijah hates the way Dom can read his mind sometimes.

"I don't know," he says shortly. The green car revs up, accelerating. It hugs the winding road like an old lover, slowly catching up to Dom's.

Dom was never particularly good at maneuvering this course, and his car is too slow, too cautious. "Yeah, okay."

"Okay."

They drive on.

After a few more minutes, in which Elijah's car has passed Dom's again and both have swerved into the purple tunnel walls at least three times each in attempts to cut each other off, Dom hits pause. He turns to Elijah, his jaw set in determination. "Seriously, Lij. You okay?"

"Yes," Elijah snaps, crossing his arms. "It's no big deal."

"I just--"

Elijah waves his controller impatiently. "Can we get back to me kicking your ass now?"

Dom sighs and takes it out of his hands. "Christ, Elijah, would you just talk to me?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Bullshit."

"You're not helping!" Elijah yells. He stops himself, biting the inside of his cheek. Once he's certain his voice will come out at a more normal volume, he says, "I just want to forget about it." And with you here, I can't, he doesn't add. Go away, Dominic.

Naturally, Dom doesn't. "Look, I know what it feels like. Talk to me." As soon as he says it, he winces and looks away.

And there's no way around it, so -- "I'm sorry," Elijah says. It's been more than a year, and this is the first time he's said it. In the end, it's surprisingly easy.

When did Dom get so close to him? The last time Elijah noticed, he had been at the other end of the couch, and now they're scant inches apart. When Dom looks at him, the closeness is suddenly uncomfortable. Too close. Too intense. "It's okay."

"How long--" Elijah starts, then trails off. He doesn't want to ask, but... "How long did it take you to stop thinking about me?" Three seconds since he last thought about Orlando, and no end in sight.

"I never did," Dom says softly, and kisses him.

Shit, Elijah thinks. This is stupid. I don't want this. This isn't going to solve anything. Fuck.

He kisses Dom back.

*

 _"So," Orlando said once, tracing a lazy path up and down Elijah's bare chest. "I've always wondered. How do I compare to Dom?"_

 _Elijah blinked at him. Orlando's face was shadowy and unreadable in the predawn light, the faintest glow from the streetlamp outside barely outlining his features in ten thousand shades of grey. That was the first difference right there: Orlando was still beautiful. Everything about him was almost too perfect, like one of those old Greek or Roman statues in the most famous museums. No one really looked like that...well, except Orlando. But Dom faded into the shadows, dusk and dawn hiding his nicest features and accentuating his awkwardness, squashed nose and big ears, too human._

 _Orlando was good in bed and knew it, boneless grace and long, easy limbs. He knew what he wanted and how to get it and how to make Elijah like giving it to him. He never went too far, never too rough nor too gentle, never visiting any extremes, just hard and fast and exactly the way Elijah hadn't realized he wanted it._

 _Dom was good in bed and knew it, strong and flexible and just plain good. He knew what Elijah wanted and how to do it and liked giving it to him. He was all about the extremes, too much or too little, molding his technique to what Elijah asked for with no middle ground. He never asked, only gave, and Elijah always knew exactly what he was going to get._

 _There was no real spontaneity with Dom because everything came from Elijah, but somehow there was less variety with Orlando because everything came from him._

 _"You're different," Elijah said finally. The sun was just starting to creep up over the horizon, but it hadn't yet reached the tops of the trees across the street. Once it did, the room would be flooded with light. "Better," he added, because at the moment, it was true. He rolled over, pressing his face against Orlando's shoulder and closing his eyes against the breaking dawn._

*

Dom fucks Elijah until Elijah can't breathe, doesn't want to breathe, forgets he ever knew what breathing was in the first place. He's sore and sweaty and knows it's going to hurt even worse in the morning, but all he says is, "Come on, then, fucker," and "Harder, for chrissakes," accompanied by a few unintelligible growls and moans. His knuckles are white from clenching the headboard of his bed, and his pillow has damp teeth marks where he's bitten down on it, hard, to keep from screaming and waking the neighbors (his mom and sister in the main house next door).

Elijah is louder and more demanding than he ever was in New Zealand, and Dom is uncharacteristically silent throughout. A constant reminder, just in case either wants to forget the year and the lovers between them.

Later, Dom asks, eyes dark and unreadable, "If Orlando called you tomorrow and said he wanted you back, would you go?"

"Yes," Elijah says, and hates himself for telling the truth.

Dom nods and looks away. "Okay," he says. He stays anyway.

But when Elijah wakes up the next morning, stiff and bruised and with a suspicious red mark on his shoulder where he doesn't remember Dom biting him but, well, yeah -- something is different.

He didn't dream about Orlando last night. Eight hours, then. Eight whole hours. Huh.

*

 _No relationship is perfect. Occasionally, Elijah and Orlando got into little fights, disagreements, arguments. Sometimes Elijah went to Sean for advice afterwards, but while he could tell Sean almost anything, he didn't quite feel comfortable revealing the more intimate details of his sex life. It would be like telling your straight older brother how your boyfriend fucks you -- something a guy just doesn't do. So for the most private things, he went to Dom._

 _He figured that since he and Dom had had their whatever thing, Dom would understand this sort of stuff better. It was only later that it occurred to him to feel guilty, but by then, the routine was too well established to break off._

 _Sometimes he went to Dom, sometimes he didn't, but no matter what, he knew that if he wanted, Dom would be there. That was the one constant: Dom was there. It was something Elijah took for granted._

*

Weeks or months later, the phone rings. Elijah beats Dom to it, sticking out his tongue as he cradles the receiver. Dom flips him off, grinning. "Hello?" Elijah says, trying not to laugh. No reason to give the unknown caller a fright.

"Elijah?"

"Orlando!" Elijah chirps. He's surprised at the warmth in his own voice. Aren't you supposed to be automatically bitter towards an ex? Well, it's been a while since they last spoke. Maybe bitterness has an expiration date.

There's something odd here, but Elijah can't quite place it.

"Er, how've you been?" Orlando says awkwardly.

Elijah perches on a kitchen stool. "All right. You?"

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"So what's up?" Elijah sorts absentmindedly through the pile of junk mail on the counter, ads and offers and already-paid bills they should've thrown out months ago.

Orlando is silent for a moment, then -- "I don't know. I've been thinking about you lately."

It takes Elijah a full ten seconds to figure out what's so weird about this. "Oh," he says. He feels like he should add something, like _fuck off_ or _me, too_ or something else appropriate for an ex to say. But all he can think is _I can't remember how long it's been since I last thought about you._

And the odd part is, it's true. He grins widely into the phone, knowing Orlando can't see it and not caring, and changes the subject.

When the conversation ends an hour and a half later, Elijah feels freer than he has in who-knows-how-long. He thinks he should tell Dom this, share the joy or something cheesy and corny like that, maybe actually go out (for a change) to celebrate, but the house is empty.

Dom is gone.

 _If Orlando called you tomorrow and said he wanted you back, would you go?_

Yes.

Oh, Elijah thinks.

Half an hour later, Elijah has the Playstation set up and is sending the hideous electric blue car around and around the track. When Dom eventually comes home, very late that night and drunker than he's ever been, he finds Elijah asleep on the couch, game controller dangling loosely in his hands. A little timer in the corner of the TV screen is still going to spite the motionless car, doggedly ticking off the minutes and seconds, keeping track.


End file.
